Wednesday, 01 October 2008
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The Threat of Childhood Immunization Refusal
by Nurse Jenna
Recently, parents have begun to question the value of immunizations for their children. It is ironic--the benefits of immunization are often getting forgotten since the diseases they have eradicated are no longer prevalent to remind people of their importance. Smallpox has been eliminated, polio is no longer in North America and diseases that used to be common such as diphtheria, tetanus, measles, and H. influenza are now rarely seen. Despite this and the fact that by some estimates immunizations prevent approximately 3 million childhood deaths a year, many parents still are hesitant, or refuse to have their children immunized.Many of the reasons parents refuse immunizations are not supported by any medical data and are mostly acquired from unreliable Internet sources, or other parents who speculate their children’s problems are related to immunizations. Immunizations have taken the blame for a battery of poorly understood conditions. Though vaccinations are not 100% without risk or effective, the risks of remaining unvaccinated can be greater. Here is an example: the risk of brain disease due to the measles vaccine is 1 in 1 million, but the risk from measles itself is 1000 times greater.
It is well known that immunizations benefit not only individual people, but communities as a whole and the more children that go unimmunized the greater the public health threat. Parents who choose not to immunize their children are given the term “free-riders” because they count on the immunity of others to keep their child protected from these devastating diseases that would otherwise reimerge if the majority of the population did not stay immunized.
One could argue (and has), and so would I, that there is a civic duty to immunize your child since the benefits have been proven to be great and the risks to the individual small, yet the risks to the general population are extreme when immunization is refused. I feel unless there is an extenuating circumstance where there is a danger for a child to be immunized, parents should not have the right to refuse immunization. It puts too many others at risk, not to mention your own child.
Do you feel immunizations should be required? Do you think that public safety should be considered, or should the decision to immunize be up to the parents?
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Comments (184)
@cmdr_keen@xanga - You asked why we are living longer. I heard a doctor once say that it's not necessarily the vaccinations making that happen. Disease is not as present because of healthy sanitation, better living conditions, and we eat more and better than 50 years ago. He goes as far to say that has played a bigger role than vaccinations, both just started to happen around the same time so vaccinations take the credit for it. Just something to think about.
I also heard a doctor say that even in the 80's he would have mothers call him and say their child wasn't acting right after the MMR shot and he said it really scared him that after a month or two they still weren't acting right and he couldn't explain why.
@Erin3838@xanga - yeah... my opinion is that if the cell wasn't a part of the fetus, it's... not a fetal cell. Because it's not like the cells they use today WERE part of the fetus, they are just copies of the cells of the fetus.
@CodeEnscripted@xanga - Then they make a new vaccine. Blah, I still vote for letting people kill themselves if they so choose. *bitter*
@VampireOfSeduction@xanga - uh... not totally sure what i said that you were replying to haha
making a vaccine is no walk in the park!
and i guess it's fair to have people die of their own volition, but with vaccines, it's usually parents deciding, and the kids would die because of them, not because they chose to have no immunity... which isn't happy
I'm an OB RN and a mom. I have disagreed with some of your other posts on occasion, but this post is plain offensive. Just because someone doesn't agree with you doesn't make them ignorant or irresponsible. Most of the parents I know who are not vaccinating are highly educated and have extensively researched the topic. Vaccinations should certainly not be required by the government. It is a basic right of any patient to refuse a medical treatment or medication. I would have thought you'd have more respect for the autonomy of parents then you displayed in this post.
@Tavia_n_Jones@xanga - Very well put.
Vaccination is so important not only for our welfare, but the well-being of those with whom we come into contact. A personal case in point is the flu vaccine. I have to get my children vaccinated, as well as my husband and I, each year to protect one of my children. Each time she contracts the flu, she has a life-threatening asthma complication which has put her in the hospital. She has still contracted the flu from un-vaccinated people twice. This is a relatively harmless illness in comparison to polio, whooping cough, or hepititis. However, if we could irradicate many of these illnesses or at the very least protect the weaker around us with such a simple preventive measure, it seems irresponsible not to do so.
Thanks for bringing up this important topic!
I have to agree that most of the "uneducated" people I know are not the ones who aren't vaccinating...they are the ones who have no clue what the shots are for, what is in them or what the side effects are and get them anyway. Its very sad that people put more research into the crib they are going to buy than they do the toxins they are injecting into their child's veins.
I understand that many people weigh the pros and cons and go with vaccinating...thats great! I weighed the pros and cons and decided that until vaccines are safe and effective, I won't be vaccinating my children.
I would not be interested in living in a country where people are compulsively immunized. To borrow from the pro choice movement, "my body, my choice."
I have to say, Nurse Jenna, that you showcased your own ignorance and fear in this post.
When you said "I feel...parents should not have the right to
refuse immunization." You lost your credibility as a nurse and my interest in your blogging forever.
You clearly value the majority over the good of the individual, just like the government.
When I asked my doctor...not nurse but DOCTOR what ingredients were in the shots, she didn't know. When I asked the reported reactions she didn't know. When I asked the probability of my child contracting the disease she didn't know. When I asked if she could at least split them up to give the immunizations individually, she had to "check".
I advise you hold off on taking such a strong stance on what rights parents should have about injecting foreign substances into their CHILDREN'S bodies until you've read and familiarized yourself thoroughly with several studies of the risks and benefits of the ingredients of these immunizations.
You should also refrain from reducing parents' beliefs that their children have been injured by immunizations to mere "speculations". Parents know their own children better than any one. Any doctor, nurse or anyone.
Its your job to care for peoples' health, not decide their rights.